Italian Garden at Westonbirt House one of England's best kept secrets

The Holford Trust has taken a lease of Westonbirt House Gardens in the hope of
increasing therichness of its Italian Garden.

Herbaceous borders were the latest thing in the middle of the 19th century, which may seem odd because most people think of Victorian gardens filled with brightly coloured bedding.

The borders at Arley Hall, in Cheshire, date from the 1840s but most of the planting is now modern and the beds include some purple berberis. A real herbaceous border should contain nothing but perennials.

I know of few borders entirely planted with hardy flowers. Michael Calnan of the National Trust finds it hard to think of any pure example of a Victorian period herbaceous border in his care apart from Packwood, which has one "mingled" border.

If you want to see an interesting experiment in early planting, the nearest to a mid-19th century number is on show in the Italian Garden at Westonbirt House.

This is part of the garden that was made by the creator of the famous Arboretum across the road. Because it is in the grounds of Westonbirt girls' school, which occupies the house where Robert Stayner Holford lived, it is only open when school is out.

After inheriting the property in 1839 Holford got going on the gardens, before he set about changing the Regency house.

The Italian Garden, which dates from the 1840s, has been described by Sir Roy Strong as one of England's best kept secrets and "one of the most amazing and exotic built garden structures to survive from the high Victorian era".

There are temples with mosaic floors and curly carvings and a stone-edged parterre, which would always be worth the visit for those who enjoy high Victoriana, but until now little to attract gardeners.

The planting in the Italian Garden was once richer, but schools cannot put flowers before classrooms and the borders had to be grassed over due to lack of labour. This year, thanks to a generous grant from the Finnis Scott Foundation, the lawns were dug up and replanted with flowers mentioned in lists about 1880.

The only plant that ought, perhaps, not to be there, is Artemisia 'Valerie Finnis', added as testimony to the Finnis Scott funding. In a raised bed under the wall there are exotics, which are less strictly period and the whole thing looks terrific.

The most remarkable thing about this restoration is that it only started in February this year, with one day a week from a highly skilled gardener, Peter Dennis and a little help from Howard Harding who works for the school, plus a couple of volunteers, Pearl Taylor and Tessa Hoey.

After studying research by the garden historian Sophieke Piebenga, and looking at photographs and reading descriptions of borders from the period, Peter organised the plants and decided on a style of planting.

He went with a diversity of types, "some repeated [but at random] and to suspend any judgements I would usually make about flowering time, colour, or texture". As far as possible, he stuck to a cut-off date of 1900.

Varieties popular in 1880 - delphiniums, asters, phlox, penstemons - were hard to find, but from descriptions in old catalogues he chose modern versions of similar habit and colour. The beds look very different from most plantings today, with plenty of colour and a gracefulness lost in our modern schemes.

Next year, The Holford Trust, which has taken a lease of the gardens from the school, hopes to add more richness to the Italian Garden with early roses and bedding plants in the parterre.

Take a look at the delightful outcome of charitable funding combined with the dedicated hard work of a very part-time skilled gardener and a couple of volunteers and marvel at what can be done in so short a time.